Minutes to Burn

Chapter 20

Samantha lay back on her bed, resting her legs straight up the wall. Lagging behind a guided tour of the facilities, a four-star general paused at the slammer window, double-taking at Samantha's posture. He stopped, crossing his arms in disapproval. Out of the corner of her eye, Samantha saw him looking at her. Thrashing around on the bed, she feigned a seizure, rolling her eyes and moaning. The general quickly turned and scurried away.

She sat up on the bed and rubbed her face. Suddenly, she recognized her children's laughter down the hall, and she rose and crossed to the window, waving as her three kids made their way toward her.

Iggy, her six-year-old, led the charge, running toward the slammer. Adopted from an orphanage in Kaliningrad, he had almost white hair which he wore in a bowl cut, his bangs a straight line across his forehead. His smooth cheeks were accented with nearly perfect circles of rosy red. Kiera limped behind him, still having trouble with her new prosthetic leg, which she'd only had a few weeks. She was growing so quickly, it seemed she was always adjusting to a new prosthesis. Maricarmen, the nanny, hurried behind the two older children, holding Danny, the three-year-old, on one hip.

Danny was emitting a long, steady moan, his voice garbling with each of Maricarmen's footsteps. He finally stopped and giggled explosively. Iggy reached the window first and banged on it. Samantha held her hand flat against the window, pressing it against the outline of his. "Hey, baby," she said. "I'm sorry I missed Christmas. But you have a ton of gifts to open the minute I get out."

Down the hall, Kiera tumbled over. A passing soldier stopped to help, but Kiera got up herself, adjusting her prosthesis and picking her back-pack up off the floor.

Maricarmen set Danny down and he ran to the window. Iggy had to pick him up so that he could see over the sill. Samantha kissed the glass, then realized that probably wasn't such a good idea and wiped her lips.

"I brought the air ticktacktoe!" Iggy cried, setting Danny down. He unrolled a thin, transparent plastic board against the window, and it clung in place. He pulled out a magic marker and made an "X" in the middle. Samantha pointed to a slot, and he penned in an "O."

"How are things going, Maricarmen?" Samantha asked.

Maricarmen rolled her eyes and ruffled Danny's hair. "He's no eating," she said, with her distinctive accent. "I make him peanut butter, but he refuse. And Iggy's no brushing his teeth."

Kiera reached the window and leaned against the glass. "So that's where my shirt went," she said.

Samantha gazed down at the NVME T-shirt. "I think the blond one's a cutie."

"Mom!" Kiera rolled her eyes. "You are so embarrassing."

"You'll have to buy marshmallow fluff for the peanut butter," Saman-tha continued to Maricarmen, "or else he won't-"

A lab technician approached and knocked on the glass. "Sorry to bother you, Sammy, but I wanted to let you know we finally got the shipment. Everything looks fine. Oh-and there's new gloves for the hood lines. Latex hands bonded to neoprene sleeves. Less slippery. Also, Tim's having problems with the Machupo rats. He can't get a safe handle on them."

"No!" Samantha said. "You can't use those gloves. We had them once before-"

"Mom!"

Samantha pointed at a slot, and Iggy penned in another "O." "And the latex separates from the sleeves. They leak like hell. Send 'em back and tell admin that their insistence on lowest bidder is going to have someone vomiting blood."

"Gross," Iggy said. "Your turn."

Maricarmen picked up Danny again, and he yanked on her necklace. Samantha turned back to her. "Brush. And pick up that glittery kid's toothpaste that comes out shaped like an elongated star on the tooth-brush." She tapped the glass to get the lab tech's attention. "Tell Tim to grab the rats by the tail and lower them onto a wire cage. When they pull away, their necks are exposed and it's the perfect scruff-grabbing angle."

Kiera pulled a folder out of her backpack. "I brought the flashcards. I'm sending them through the pass-through box," she said.

Beside the window was an autoclave that could be opened from both inside and outside the slammer. One side always remained sealed. Inside, extremely strong UV killed off any germs. Before an object was moved out of the slammer, it first had to sit in the box under UV light for fif-teen minutes, then be sprayed down with disinfectant for further decon-tamination.

Samantha grabbed Kiera's folder as Iggy cried, "Three in a row!" and wiped the marker off the board with his sleeve.

"No, don't…" Samantha shook her head, looking at the black smudge on Iggy's sweatshirt. He started a new game, drawing another "X." "I'm sorry they're being difficult, Maricarmen," she said, pointing at the board to take her turn. She pulled out an enlarged photograph from the folder and pressed it against the glass. It was a fuzzy black-and-white enlargement of long slender threads that curved around them-selves.

"Ea-sy," Kiera groaned. "Filovirus."

"Good, baby," Samantha said. She waved at Danny with one finger. "How's my little blowfish?" she asked. He laughed and puffed out his cheeks. Samantha turned to Maricarmen with pleading eyes, holding another photograph to the window. "I should be out in a week. I've already contacted day care-they can take them days. Do you think you could…?"

Kiera gazed at the photograph, which featured spaghetti-like rods curved in shepherd's crooks. "Marburg," she said. "Causes disseminated intravascular coagulation."

Maricarmen waved her hand. "Of course. I will maybe have to reschedule some things, but if you are busy saving the world…"

Iggy laughed. "My mom saves the world," he said.

"Not quite, honey."

Iggy banged into Kiera with his rear end, almost knocking her over. She leaned over, unstrapped her leg, and smacked him across the head with it.

"Kiera!" Samantha said. "We talked about that kind of attention-getting!"

"Well-"

"No 'wells.' Are you going to act like that when you're a senator? Well? Are you?"

"I'm not gonna be a senator. I'm gonna be a virologist."

"You can be both if you stop whacking people over the head with your prosthetic limb. Now…" Samantha pulled out another enlarge-ment and pressed it to the glass. Round particles containing small grainy bits.

Kiera bent over, strapping her leg back on. "Arenavirus," she said.

"Excellent." Samantha tapped the glass and Iggy penned an "O." He blocked her move with an "X."

The lab tech returned. "I took care of the gloves," he said. "And you got this from Donald Denton at the New Center." He pulled a test tube, containing the Sangre de Dios dinoflagellate DNA pellet, out of a padded box. "He thinks the plankton are virus-laden. I'm sending them through." Not wanting to damage the DNA, he clicked a switch to deac-tivate the heat and UV light inside the autoclave before placing the test tube inside. The precautions were only a necessity when moving materi-als from inside the slammer to out.

Opening the autoclave from her side, Samantha pulled out the test tube and held it up, then glanced at her microscope on the counter. She looked back at the kids.

"I know, I know," Kiera said. "You have to get to work now. I recog-nize when your mouth gets like that."

Danny shook his head back and forth furiously. "I don't wanna go yet."

"Honey, I'll be home soon," Samantha said. She tapped the window with a blunt fingernail. "I promise."

"Yeah, right," Kiera said.

"Honey, please. Give me a hand here."

"Well, I can't spare a leg."

Samantha set her hands on her hips. "Maricarmen, why don't you take the boys to the car? I'll send Kiera out in a moment."

The boys kissed the window, and Samantha cringed but refrained from scolding them since she'd set the example. Maricarmen took the boys by their hands and led them out. Kiera played with a hole in her jeans.

"What is going on with you?" Samantha asked.

"Why are you in here?"

"I just…I needed to…I got exposed to…"

Kiera sighed. Loudly. "I read what you did in the newspaper. Maricar-men cut out the article, but I saw the blank square and knew it would be something good, so I dug it out of the garbage."

"Don't dig in the garbage, honey."

"That is not the point!" Kiera said, her nostrils flaring.

"Honey, you know how my work is. We've talked about this. I some-times have to take risks to help other people."

"Well, what am I supposed to tell Danny if you end up with… with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome or something? Then what?"

Samantha pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. "How old are you again?"

Kiera's face remained angry. "It's not just you anymore, you know," she said. "It's us too."

Stunned, Samantha sat down slowly on a nearby chair. She felt as though she'd just had the breath knocked out of her. The test tube was cool in her hand. "I know," she said. "You're right."

Kiera chewed her bottom lip. "Well… just don't let it happen again."

"Okay," Samantha said. "I won't." She stood again and crossed to the window. She reached out to touch the glass, then lowered her hands in frustration. She'd never wanted to hold her child so much. "Honey, you kids are the most important thing to me in the world. I hope you know that."

Kiera's face softened. "I do." She looked up at her mother. "I'd better get going. Maricarmen's waiting."

Samantha leaned against the glass, watching her daughter until she turned the corner at the end of the hall. She sat back down in the chair and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She didn't move for a long time. Then she rose and walked over to the microscope.